The pleasures of success: game-related efficacy experiences as a mediator between player performance and game enjoyment

In the present study, the interplay of player performance, game-related self-efficacy experiences, and the resulting effects on game enjoyment are investigated. We hypothesized that a player's performance stimulates enjoyment via its potential to stimulate game-related self-efficacy experiences. In a laboratory setting, participants (N?=?213) played a jump 'n' run game. Their performance during game play was recorded by log-file software, and efficacy and enjoyment were assessed with questionnaires. As predicted, both player performance and game-related self-efficacy experience were significant predictors of enjoyment. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that game-related self-efficacy experience significantly mediates the relationship between player performance and game enjoyment.     

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: environmental integration

Memory for objects declines when people move from one location to another (the location updating effect). However, it is unclear whether this is attributable to event model updating or to task demands. The focus here was on the degree of integration for probed-for information with the experienced environment. In prior research, the probes were verbal labels of visual objects. Experiment 1 assessed whether this was a consequence of an item-probe mismatch, as with transfer-appropriate processing. Visual probes were used to better coordinate what was seen with the nature of the memory probe. In Experiment 2, people received additional word pairs to remember, which were less well integrated with the environment, to assess whether the probed-for information needed to be well integrated. The results showed location updating effects in both cases. These data are consistent with an event cognition view that mental updating of a dynamic event disrupts memory.     

Two- vs. three-dimensional presentation of mental rotation tasks: Sex differences and effects of training on performance and brain activation

The well-documented sex difference in mental rotation favoring males has been shown to emerge only for 2-dimensional presentations of 3-dimensional objects, but not with actual 3-dimensional objects or with virtual reality presentations of 3-dimensional objects. Training studies using computer games with mental rotation-related content have demonstrated training effects on mental rotation performance. Here, we studied the combined effect of a two-week mental rotation (MR) training on 2-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional presentations of a classic Shepard–Metzler task (presented in a pretest–training–posttest design) and their accompanying cortical activation patterns assessed via EEG in a sample of 38 male and 39 female adolescents of about 15 years of age. Analysis of one performance parameter (reaction times) displayed only main effects of dimensionality (with shorter RTs on the 3D vs. 2D version of the MR task) and of training (significant shortening of RTs), but no significant sex difference. Analysis of the other performance parameter (scores) in the MR task revealed a sex difference favoring males that first, appeared only in the 2D version, but not in the 3D version of the MR task and, secondly, diminished after training. Neurophysiologically we observed a complex sex × dimensionality × training × hemisphere interaction showing that the hypothesized decrease of brain activation (increase in neural efficiency) with training emerged for males in both 2D and 3D conditions, whereas for females this decrease was found only in the 3D but not with the 2D version of the MR task.     

Tanztherapie

Dance therapy is presented as a processorientated psychotherapeutic method. Its historical roots in the German Expressive Dance and in the Human Potential Movement in the USA are discussed together with current trends in Germany. Phenomena as rhythm, the experience of space, vitality contours, nonverbal attunement and movement analysis are discussed theoretically and backed up by short examples of dance therapeutic sessions. The integration of psychoanalysis and dance therapy is illustrated by the approach of Elaine V. Siegel, speaking about physical transference and counter transference. The therapeutic work with body image and the idea of creative movement and playfulness for the purpose of a new orientation of Stern’s RIG`s (representations of interactions that have been generalized) are fit in a modern and psychodynamic oriented concept of dance therapy. Questions concerning indication and current research are shortly summarized. Dance therapy, as the youngest creative therapeutic method beside music therapy and art therapy, is characterized by its openness for interactive scopes, the integration of behavior observation (through movement analysis) and psychodynamic reconstructions.     

Berufsbezogene Werthaltungen

Job related work values were assessed in 68 participants of a psychotherapy training program and 30 students of two management courses. All three were academic based programs. Two inventories were used to identify potential differences, namely the Work Values Inventory (Seifert and Bergmann 1983) and the Questionnaire on Work and Job Related Behavior and Emotion Patterns (Schaarschmidt and Fischer 1996). There were significant group differences concerning job involvement, ambition, need for change and autonomy, willingness for overexertion, ability to keep distance and work values oriented toward income and career. No differences were found concerning the subjective importance of work, the tendency to resignation, the quality of life, the experience of social support and values related to work climate. These findings corroborate some of the stereotypes associated with these two areas of work.     

Genetic Modulation of Neurocognitive Development in Cancer Patients throughout the Lifespan: a Systematic Review

Neuropsychology Review - The rise in cancer survival rates has raised concerns about the long-term adverse effects of cancer treatment, including neurocognitive impairment. Neurocognitive deficits...     

Die Wiederherstellung der Zeit in der ambulanten Psychotherapie mit Psychosekranken

In psychoanalytic psychotherapy with psychotic patients, a disturbance in time experience quite frequently turns out to be central to the psychotic experience as a whole. These patients experience disruptions in the flow of time that lead to a loss of temporal continuity. This loss of temporal structures causes damage in thinking functions: Relations like causality, finality and others which imply a temporal dimension, cannot be established any more. Parts of treatment histories serve to demonstrate the reconstruction of temporal continuity by the patient in psychotherapy. Object-relation-theory and Piaget’s experimental psychology provide the frame of reference for the understandig of the mental processes involved. At the beginning of the psychotherapy the patient experiences being together with the therapist and being separated from him as two discrete conditions of existing which have no links. The periodical reappearance of being together in combination with the awareness of the therapist’s continuous ongoing care encourages the patient to remember and to envisage the meetings with the therapist. The reliability of the alternation seems to stimulate a specific mental activity which creates connections allowing for transitions between the different conditions — in the sense of Winnicott’s transitional phenomena. Transitional phenomena which sometimes are quite concrete things bridge the gap between presence and future. Narrating serves as a link to the past. Through these creative ego-activities temporal continuity is regained providing the basis for strucured thinking and — very important — for the perception of one’s own personality and its continuity over time, thus generating a sense of identity. This process of reconstructing time is interesting in itself, because it sheds light on the psychodynamics of the restitutional processes after a psychotic illness. Moreover, it allows for hypotheses about the development of the inner time dimension in early childhood.